Tavis Smiley Quotes

The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category.

The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.

Don't envy someone else's gift. Discover your own.

That is still the case in this country for too many students, the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you don't expect them to learn, if you don't expect them to succeed - then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The storm came. Lives were washed away. Ancient pains resurfaced. Now it is time for a sea of change.

Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.

I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.

We need to elect leaders who understand that leadership is about loving and serving people, not about self-advancement.

Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future.

Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority.

I think that what started out as a European Union originally was probably a really wonderful and world-changing idea, the idea of a kind of cooperation and interdependence between countries. But the idea that individualization would work on common ground, not on conflict, not against each other, but to find how each benefitted from the other I thought was an incredibly hopeful and positive possibility.

My personal assessment is that Dr. King is the greatest American we have ever produced. I can argue for Lincoln, I can argue for FDR, but for my money, King is the greatest American we have ever produced. His only weapon was love. He transforms a nation, transforms the world with one weapon and that of course being again the weapon of love. So that for me, King is the quintessential example of everything that I could ever want to be in my lifetime.

Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody's got to look over the shoulder of that child.

I learned early on that it's heartbreaking to - there's the editor that comes in, and then they have to craft the movie together, and sometimes you give a whole performance that's just been cut up, and maybe it's better for it, absolutely, but you still have to deal with the loss of that.

Why don't we scale up those things that do work.

Jamestown changed the world in many ways, but perhaps it shaped our nation most profoundly the day Africans arrived. I can't think of a more relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture became American culture.

This administration and these folk who run Washington are no more interested in our welfare and our well being than the man on the moon. And we have got to start taking our destiny into our hands.

Live just because or live your life for a cause

In some states, not even 50 percent of black boys finish high school.

Even behind bars, even on Death Row, you can fail up, because life is about committing ourselves on a daily basis to the best in us. Freedom is a state of mind. Freedom is an attitude. Freedom is a spirit. You may be behind bars, but you still have the capacity to be free.

I don't want the Obama era to be more about symbolism than substance when it comes to black people. I love him, but I love black people even more.

I don't think I'd live anything over, even though I've made a lot of mistakes. I have learned how to see failure as a friend. So, I'm not one to live a life of regrets. I try to learn from my mistakes, but I'll take my life the way it is.

Losing teaches you something

How do you grow up in the shadow of a guy - I want to talk about the movie in a second - but how do you grow up in the shadow of a guy who really is a legend in his own time?

My role on television is one of helping people reexamine the assumptions that they hold. I regard Dr. King. You would never hear me get up and speak without in some way, shape or form, referencing, Dr. King.

Take your focus off how others see you. Cease being obsessed with the need to impress your friends and your foes. Keep your concern on the vision you see in the mirror. Don’t allow the approval of others to obstruct your view of you.

We give you the facts. I told you information is power - knowledge is power. We can't be in an ideological battle to redeem the soul of this country if we don't have the facts.

To be clear, the gap between the have gots and the have nots is widening. In this most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, that concerns me.

When you work for something, you appreciate it more. So what are y'all going to do with all the opportunities you inherited that you didn't have to work for?

I still think in this country, and this might surprise you, the one thing that George Bush said as president that I do agree with, I love that phrase, "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

My acting gives me my self-worth

History is replete with examples of moments in time when we talk about deficit reduction and try to advance on it around the world, that is, where it leads to job losses, not job creation.

Be careful about gossiping because loose lips really do sink ships.

I'm very musically curious and I love new experience. I'm an adventurer. Some people want to sort of stay in a safe zone and repeat the same things and give them more depth, and I want to do new things all the time

I believe there is nothing we endure in life that you can't recover from. Failure is not fatal. Everyone has the capacity to fail up.

There are really only two types of people. Either you're running scared or you're running free. I choose to run free, and you can, too, no matter what your circumstances in life.

I believed that President Obama was a good choice a couple of years ago because I felt that, as a black man, if he could win, it would open up progressive possibilities in this country for a lot of people. That was my major reason for believing his candidacy was a good thing. However, I don't endorse candidates, given the type of work that I do. My job is to hold people accountable.

I think the issue of women's choice is essential for a woman being able to have their lives - if they cannot control their own bodies by choosing if or when to have a child, then they cannot control their working life or anything around them.

I just find in our world that forgiveness is becoming more and more a difficult thing for us to do.

I can't count the number of people I've talked to over the course of my career who have said to me that the thing that they most regret is the one time they did something just for the money.

I feel like I've been successful after being done with the film is when I see it, if I'm embarrassed, if I'm slightly mortified, and if I feel super-vulnerable, I think I did something.

Fear, fear, breeds hopelessness. When you're afraid, you don't know what to believe in, you don't know what to hold on to. You're struggling to find something to believe in.

I grew. Going outside my comfort zone is a big one for me.

For me, like when you've put yourself out there emotionally, physically, and you've really put yourself on the line, for me, that means I've really done something.

It's hard these days to have a conversation, at least it is for me, about [Truman]Capote without "Good Night, and Good Luck" coming up in the same conversation.

I think when I stop fighting, I die in a sense.

Troubled times do call for troubled songs, songs that unsettle our souls and our spirits unapologetically.

There are enough bad films coming out of this town already without the process being more democratized. I'm a guy who loves democracy. I'm all for democratizing any process, but I think there is a price to pay for that.

We think of - there are too many wars, of course, in the world as we speak, but my read on this suggests to me that water is going to be the resource into the future that we're really - that countries, nations, are going to be fighting for control over.

[In a blogosphere] everybody has an opinion now, but I don't really freaking care about - all opinions ain't created equal, because everybody can go out there and express themselves and hide behind some character we don't know who you really are, a bunch of cowards.